


it's the goddamn fight of my life and you started it

by closertoheavenn



Category: Dickinson (TV)
Genre: Character Study, F/F, Season/Series 02 Spoilers, also, and that is a whole mood, anyways my love for sue transcends this earth, idk how else to tag this lol, if you want a fic that has like 185 references to and metaphors about desire, just a heads up, me?? writing in second pov??? it's more likely than you think, obviously, of some sorts, so is this me finding excuses for her behavior in season 2???? perhaps, this is literally 16k words about sue hating straight sex and wanting to top emily, this is the place you need to be, title from ivy like every emisue fic ever oops, tw: miscarriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-15 14:15:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28690023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/closertoheavenn/pseuds/closertoheavenn
Summary: It's inevitable.Emily has taken all of your longing, something that has been buried, something that has always been somewhere deep down inside of you, and makes it sound like her name caught in your throat, her fingers, her lips on yours, her boisterous laugh, her mind, her light.Emily has taken all of that desire and made ityours.//or: Sue, and Emily, and the delicate matter ofwantthroughout Dickinson, from childhood up to the season 2 finale.
Relationships: Austin Dickinson/Susan Gilbert Dickinson, Emily Dickinson/Susan Gilbert Dickinson, Samuel Bowles/Susan Gilbert Dickinson
Comments: 65
Kudos: 340





	1. Chapter 1

You are Sue Gilbert, you are nine years old and you are a good girl. You have spent most of your life at funerals, in strangers’ homes, at boarding houses and with foster parents. You have never been taught to _want_ \- always to give, to provide, to permit, never to have. 

“I only have three rules, Susan,” the stern lady who runs the boarding house tells you after your aunt’s funeral. “One, you go to sleep at eight o’clock sharp. Two, you feed the chickens twice a day. And three, and this is the most important one: you are a good girl. Do you understand, Susan?”

“Sue.”

“What?”

“I would like to be called Sue, ma’am. Not Susan, thank you,” you say, in all your nine year old innocence, because it’s true. You prefer the name Sue.

“Listen to me, _Susan_ , and listen to me very carefully,” the stern lady whispers. Her face is so close to yours that you can smell her breath - sour, bitter, with a hint of cheap tobacco and hard liquor that your father used to drink. “You think you’re _fucking_ funny, do you?”

You open your mouth to protest; you do not think you’re funny at all, you just don’t like the name Susan.

You feel her hand hit your cheek. A searing, white-hot burning fire spreads through your body. You bite your lip and taste the blood on your tongue, between your teeth, tears in your eyes.

“Well, let me tell you something, Susan,” she spits, “When you are sleeping under my roof, you sleep at eight, you feed the goddamn chickens and you are a _good girl_.” She puts emphasis on the last two words. You swallow hard, trying not to choke on the iron taste of blood.

“A good girl is not funny,” she spews, “A good girl sits like a proper young lady, a good girl only talks when she is supposed to, a good girl does what a man says and a good girl does not _want_ anything. Do you understand?”

You open your mouth, shut it, open it again, shut it again. Then, you nod. This must be a trick question, you think. You are only allowed to talk when you are supposed to.

“Good.” The lady nods, as if she has decided that you passed her test. “That’s what I thought. Now, go upstairs to wash yourself. I need your help with dinner.”

You nod again. Blood is pooling in your mouth.

That evening, your cheek hurts. You do not talk unless you’re spoken to, you do not tell jokes, you do what the husband of the stern lady wants you to do, you sit up straight and decent. The stern lady smiles at you across the table. _“Good girl,”_ she mouths.

You do not want anything else than what has been given to you. 

A good girl should not _want._

(You are Sue Gilbert, you are nine years old, there is blood in your mouth for the first time and you are a good girl. 

You are Sue Gilbert, you are nine years old, you learn to savor the taste of blood, because you are a good girl.

You are nine years old and you are not yet aware that desire is a beast - a monster that begs and begs mercilessly with his fists and teeth and tears your body apart until it gets what it _wants_.)

//

You are Sue Gilbert and you are twelve years old when you meet Emily Dickinson – all bright eyes and wicked smiles and ink-stained fingers.

You are sitting against the base of a large willow near the lake of Amherst, reading a book, twirling a few blades of grass between your fingers, enjoying the stillness of it all.

Suddenly, a young girl with wild hair comes running up to you, stopping right in front of you, breathing heavily.

“Hello, I’m sorry to bother you while you’re reading, but do you happen to know how to passive-aggressively say ‘fuck you’ in flower?”

You close your book and look up, somewhat bothered, somewhat amused. “What?”

The girls sighs dramatically. “My mother forced me to pick flowers for the table for our guests this afternoon.”

“And you don’t want to do that?”

“Oh, she’s going to get her flowers,” the girl says, grinning devilishly, “The ugliest, grossest ones I can find.” 

She is quiet for a few seconds, contemplating, before turning to you again: “You don’t happen to know where I can find that kind of flowers, do you?”

You laugh. “Actually, I think I know just the spot. Follow me.”

(Fools might have said it was love at first sight. 

It wasn’t love at first sight, because you never fell in love with Emily in the first place. You never even had to fall in love with Emily. You like to think it’s because you two were born loving each other).

//

You are Sue Gilbert, you are thirteen years old and you are desperately trying not to _want._

(You wonder; when you try not to want, doesn’t that count as wanting too?

You try not to think about trying not to want. Then you wonder; does trying not to think about trying not to want as wanting too?)

Emily Dickinson is your best friend in the entire world. She is funny, she talks whenever she feels like she has something to say, she sits however she thinks is comfortable, and she _wants_ \- so much, too much, almost.

“I want to be a poet, Sue.”

You think, you should not want anything, Em. Desire is dangerous. You think, perhaps you want so much because I want so little. Because what I lack, you have. It's what makes us such a good team in the first place.

You think about the taste of blood a lot.

You think about her a lot, too. 

Here is the thing: she is beautiful. Emily is the most beautiful girl you’ve ever met – she is more than beautiful. She is surprising, this golden, brilliant light at the end of your tunnel. You can’t lose that priceless light she provides you.

You have learned over the years that the line between beauty and harshness is a very, very fine one – and Emily is the only person in your life who is both.

You just ignore the butterflies you notice in your stomach sometimes, partly because it’s okay, partly because it’s not. 

//

_(Lust is a thing that builds and builds and builds -)_

//

You are Sue Gilbert, you are fourteen years old, and you just kissed your best friend for the first time.

It happens like this: It’s your fourteenth birthday and you are sitting on the porch together, sharing the leftover peach cobbler Vinnie baked the two of you, feeding each other little bites. The sun is setting; a light red, almost orange haze is slowly setting over Emily’s body. Her face glows. She grins at you – warm, content, a little bit lazy. 

Your heart burns up from the inside.

“I wrote a poem for you,” Emily says. “For your birthday.”

“A poem?” you echo.

Emily hums. She takes a tiny little piece of paper out of the pockets of her dress, presses a kiss onto the ink and hands it to you.

“Happy birthday, Sue.”

Your heart stops for only half a second before continuing its frantic beating as you start reading it.

Emily watches you read with an attentive look on her face, her eyes bright and luminous.

When you’re done, your lips curve into a big smile, you feel tears welling up behind your eyes, you look at her looking at you, this golden, angelic kind of light behind her.

“Oh, Emily,” you sigh, “this is perhaps the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me.”

“Written you a poem?”

You nod.

“That’s… kind of sad, actually,” Emily says, but her smile is kind and warm. “I could write you a poem every day, you know. If you wanted me to. To make up for all your birthdays I’ve missed.”

“You would do that for me?” you ask, astounded. _A good girl should not want._

Emily nods. “Of course! You’re my favorite person in the entire world, Sue. I would do anything for you.”

She would do that for you, you ponder. She wants to do that for me. She _wants_ , of course. That must mean something. You don't know what.

Then, she intertwines your fingers and looks at you like -

Like -

Suddenly, Emily’s face is coming closer and closer. Your noses bump and your breath hitches in your throat and Emily looks golden and fleeting like the sun, which makes you lean forward, closer to her lips, she swallows, and then – 

_Then_ , you kiss her.

//

For the first time in your life, you allow yourself to _want_ something, something all of your very own.

Here’s the thing: you don’t feel real when she is not there to touch you, to look at you.

It’s quite simple, really.

You want to kiss her, you want to hold her hand, you want to dance with her, you want her to write you poems that make your feel like your heart explodes, you want to go swimming with her in the lake in the middle of the night, you want, you _want_ -

It’s inevitable.

Emily has taken all of your longing, something that has been buried, something that has always been somewhere deep down inside of you, and makes it sound like her name caught in your throat, her fingers, her lips on yours, her boisterous laugh, her mind, her light.

Emily has taken all of that desire and made it _yours._

//

You sneak around all summer - it’s heavenly, this hunger to have, not to give.

You are lying in the shade, together, underneath a large apple tree in the orchard. Your legs are tangled, your bodies close to each other. Emily is drawing small circles on the skin between your shoulder blades, creating triangles on your upper spine, there’s a blissful blankness playing at the edges of your mind.

The grass underneath your body, the bumblebees and butterflies buzzing around the two of you, the sun golden in the sky, lazy kisses, it’s heaven.

You kiss Emily sweetly on the lips and she is your best friend and she is beautiful and you are so, so in love with her.

Emily leans her head against yours and whispers, “Promise me something, Sue.”

You hum.

“Promise me we’ll never get married and become great writers together.”

You grin, you look at Emily’s cheeks turning red. “Okay, I promise.”

“Forever?” she asks.

“Forever?” you echo, not sure what she means by that.

“Well, we are forever, right?” Emily says, intertwining your fingers with hers.

“I’d like to be,” you answer truthfully.

Emily smiles, dazed. “Forever forever?”

“Forever forever.”

“For -”

“Yes, Emily,” you can’t help but laugh, “Forever.”

Emily contemplates for a second. “Good,” she decides, then. She kisses you softly on your nose. “Very good.”

“I know,” you grin.

“But Sue?”

“Yes?” you say.

“Forever forever fore -”

Emily’s voice gets stuck in her throat when you laugh and pull her in for another kiss.

Her laugh is -

(In retrospect, you should have known you couldn’t promise Emily _forever_ in a world where even life itself is temporary.)

//

As the years pass by, you fall even more in love, if that is possible.

You start to wonder about certain things. 

Sometimes, you marvel what it would like to be a man - to be able to kiss Emily in front of her entire family and for it to feel normal, to walk hand in hand through Amherst together, be able to _marry_ Emily.

You long for normalcy. You long for warm kisses in public. You long for a lifetime by her side. You long for lots of things.

You _want._

//

_(That goddamn lust - it just keeps building, and it builds and builds ands builds and builds and -)_

//

You are Sue Gilbert, you are nineteen years old and you make the biggest mistake of your life.

Austin asks you to marry him. He crawls between your legs and tells you how much he _wants_ you.

You don't exactly know why, but you mistake it for some kind of sign.

You say yes.

//

You are Sue Gilbert, you are twenty years old and it’s your wedding day.

It’s simultaneously the best and worst day of your life. You wake up and think you might throw up, and you don’t know if it’s because you’re nervous to marry this beautiful man or because you _want_ Emily to take you to the edge of the earth to fall off.

But you get into your dress, and you can do it. You tell yourself you can do it, damnit.

You love Austin. Your love for him is a whole, full thing, that has (nearly) nothing to do with your love for Emily. You think you are perfectly capable of loving to people at once. Loving Austin is good, safe, comfortable. 

Austin is the epitome of a good man. He is everything you need in a man and perhaps even more.

You love his dark eyes, his locks of hair that fall around his face, his big, doopy smile, his Dickinson pride, his creativity, the rare looks of love he saves for you. You love the way he loves you.

(You try to be a good girl. You try not to be selfish. You do what he wants you to.

Austin wants you to love him. You do.

You try to be a good girl. You really, really do. It’s just that - Late at night, when you are lying in bed and you hear Emily's soft and slow breathing next to you, you can’t help but know that if your relationship with Austin were to ever end and one of the two hearts would break, it wouldn’t be yours.)

You tell yourself you love Austin. You love Austin. It is enough.

(It’s all you allow yourself, so it kind of has to be.)

//

You stand in front of the mirror and practice your smile, white teeth and all. It matches your dress.

There is this faint taste of blood lingering in your mouth as you look at yourself.

You blame it on the nerves.

(You promise him forever, in sickness and in health, and he slides the ring onto your finger, and he kisses you.

Emily is not there with you, but as you promise him _forever_ , you can still hear Emily’s voice saying the exact same thing back to you six years ago.)

//

You are Sue Gilbert ( _Dickinson_ , now), you are twenty years old and you wake up in the middle of the night because there is thick, lukewarm fluid running down your legs and a horrible ache in your abdomen.

A blind panic floods through your body.

You don’t remember a lot after that. You only remember parts and bits of the aftermath - Emily, her eyes dark and fearful, a warm cloth on your midriff, hot tears, kisses on your cheek, words whispered, more tears, blood, everywhere.

“You have to swear to never tell Austin,” you murmur. Emily nods. “Okay, I swear.”

She runs her hand through your hair. “It’s okay,” she tells you, soothing you, “it’s going to be okay.”

You don’t have the strength to tell her: it’s _not_. You don’t think you would if you could.

You don’t have the strength to tell her: this is what the stern lady warned me for. _Wanting_. Not wanting the baby enough, not wanting Austin enough, wanting you too much. 

//

You are Sue Dickinson, you are twenty-one years old and you have everything your heart desires.

Lavish parties, vintage dresses, a wonderful husband, four horses, your sister-in-law and simultaneously best friend living next door.

It’s just that -

Everyone _wants_ so much from you. You try to be a good girl, but everyone _wants_ : Austin, your guests, Jane, Sam Bowles, Mrs. Dickinson, _Emily_ -

You like being rich. You are good at being rich. You take pride in being rich. It’s just that -

The love for material things has grown like a fungus inside of you. It makes you feel grand on the outside, but like a fruit that bugs have eaten from within.

Material love is nice, because material love is the only love you have that cannot love you back. It’s just that -

You don’t necessarily _want_ this. The dresses from Vienna, the overpriced whiskey, the extravagant pieces of jewelry, the attention -

You still feel like you are starving. You now know more clearly than ever that you crave something this life cannot ever give you. Something Austin cannot ever give you.

There is only one thing you truly want. It is still quite simple, really, but the very fact that you want _Emily_ is also the most excruciating and most painful thing you ever felt in your life.

//

Emily has so much love for you, nothing but love and love and love. She wants to love you so much; all of her love for you can be found in her poems.

And you love her poems so much. So much, too much. So much that it’s almost unbearable. You love her so much, you think you might actually be suffocating in her love; you think her poems might be slowly choking you. 

She doesn’t know this, you don’t know how to tell her this without breaking her heart. 

Here’s the thing: you are utterly in love with her poems (and with her), you don’t ever want her to stop writing. You would _never_ do that to your best friend, you are not a cruel person. 

You just can’t bear it anymore.

She makes her desire livable by putting it into words - but in turn, she is giving it to you. She has always done this: she makes it _yours._

And you want her so much. But you have to make her stop, this is going to be the death of you.

You tell her. You take her apart at one of your parties to clean her face - she asks you what you think of her poems. You tell her.

“Reading them, it’s like - it’s like my heart almost explodes,” you say, your lips quivering, your heart almost exploding.

And Emily looks at you with those gorgeous, admiring eyes and a brilliant smile and exclaims, “ _Oh Sue_ , that’s what I _want_. That’s what I _want_ you to feel.”

This is what she wants, you think. Oh no, this is what she _wants_. You feel as if you might throw up. You are suffocating, you are choking, she smothers you with her words. You can’t do this. You can’t _want_ anymore.

(You panic about what to do with all of your desire, before it all becomes too much. You panic about what to do with all of your desire, as it now doesn’t even seem to fit your body anymore.)

//

“Suzie, thank you for hosting this beautiful salon tonight. It truly is a pleasure to be here,” Sam Bowles tells you that same night, when the party’s over.

“Thank you for coming,” you answer, smiling dutifully, as a good hostess should.

“This must be all a girl _wants_ ,” he smiles. “Isn’t it, Suzie?” 

The words make you incredibly nauseous and leave you feeling terrible - like there are wasps forcing their way down your throat, your lungs, your stomach. Your entire body stings.

You smirk nonetheless. “Yes, it is,” you beam, but the stinging doesn’t go away, despite taking the biggest gulp of expensive French brandy that burns your throat.

“All a girl dreams of.”

(You don’t tell him that this is not actually what a girls dreams of. You don’t tell him that in your dreams, your stomach is flat and you are alone. You call out Emily’s name, but she is too far gone to hear.

In your dreams, there is blood on your legs, blood underneath your fingernails, on your tongue, all over your body.

You are not sure if it’s yours.)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> so this has basically become a really intense (and probably really incorrect) study of sue's feelings through episodes 2 till 5 of season 2 lol

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here we have it, folks: i watched episode 5 today and you can't convince me that sue wasn't starting to get jealous of emily and sam. and jealous!sue just...... does it for me. i can't NOT write about that. hope you enjoy!
> 
> p.s: still tw for dealing with a miscarriage, just to let everyone know

You are Sue Dickinson, you are twenty-one years old and you are _insatiable._

Your latest salon is a flourishing success – your guests twirl around in their expensive dresses and suits, everyone with everyone, bright and joyful, champagne is flowing freely, the music escaping into the night through every open window and door.

You are standing in the corner, sipping your wine, a small smile tugging at your lips. You can do anything, you think. You can do everything. You have orchestrated plenty of great entertainments, poetry readings, serious discussions, even dramatic productions for your guests at the Evergreens, and the people keep coming, the papers keep writing, the compliments keep flowing.

This is something you are good at, something grand, something that makes your heart swell with pride, something that is completely and utterly _yours._

(This is something you can _control._ You try not to marvel about how nice it is to finally be able to have something like this. To not be the person who wants too much but to feel how many others want things from you, now.)

(You also try not to think about things you can’t control – the stern lady, want and desire and everything ugly and _fucked up_ that comes with it. 

You try not to think about your unborn child, all of that dried up blood and your dreams and that horrible, horrible shame that has formed this pit in your stomach, and above all, this emptiness, that holds your hand through all of this. 

Most of all, you try not to think about Emily, not in a way that you shouldn’t anymore. You put her poems in an old suitcase and hide it somewhere in the back of your closet, behind your new silk dresses from Paris. To forgive and forget. Or something.

You try to concentrate on the fact that she is your best friend and that she is a poet and that she deserves to be published, to be known. You try to focus on that, because that is all you can give her now, all you allow yourself to give her. 

This is all you can control. This is all you can _want_.) 

(It still jabs you in your heart all the same. You can’t look at her or talk to her without thinking about how much you love her, how much you need her, how much you _want_ her. 

You are terrified of sleeping because of this thing that lives inside you. 

If you could scrub yourself clean from this hunger, you would. But you simply can’t, so instead you grit your teeth and clench your fists and you swallow your thoughts. They burn in your throat.)

(Fame might be a fickle food, you think, but control is something else altogether.) 

//

You don’t exactly remember the reason why you started sleeping with Sam. The details of the first time have gone fuzzy in your head – the darkness and alcohol (and shame) obscured your memory. 

You do remember that it was not about Emily, the first time. 

(Not really. Not consciously. You were drunk and tired and you just needed to feel something. You didn't think of Emily. In fact, you didn't think at all).

The second time was, though. You remember walking into the library, at night, after hosting one of your salons. 

“Ah, Suzie,” Sam greets you with a grin. He is leaning against the shelves, smoking a cigar, flipping through a small leatherbound book.

“What did you think of the salon?” you ask. 

“I loved it, of course,” Sam answers, looking up. “It was a true pleasure being here. It’s always a pleasure being here. Especially when you look like that.”

“I’m flattered,” you smirk. "So, you'll do a write-up?"

“Well,” Sam starts, taking a drag of his cigar. “I think I’m going to.”

“You _think_?” you repeat, your voice a little louder than you’d like. “Sam, come on. We all know –” 

“Look, Sue,” Sam interrupts you, “Suzie, baby, your salon is great and all that. It's interesting, it’s great, it's intellectual, I can give you all that,” he says. “But there I got at least seven other invitations from women in Massachusetts tonight, begging me to publish their salon in my paper. Why should I publish yours?”

He looks at you tauntingly, smirks, takes another drag. You blink; you understand. “What do you need?” you ask.

Sam puts out the cigar, still smirking, sits down casually in the armchair next to the fireplace. “I think you know.”

You think you do, too. Men are all the same. You walk up to him, sink to the floor and start unbuttoning his pants. 

“And then you’ll review my salon, right?” you ask him.

“Oh Suzie Dickinson, I think you just made yourself a very good deal,” he answers, and as you lean forward, he leans backwards and patiently lights another cigar.

(It’s easier than you thought it would be. 

Sam is easy – he is objectively good-looking, he smells good, he doesn’t ask any questions, he doesn’t know you, he doesn’t want to know you, he only wants _you_.

And the fact that you can't stop thinking of Emily only makes it easier, really.)

// 

(The second time is about Emily. 

So are the third, the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth time.)

// 

You have good days and bad days, now. 

The day of the Amherst Cattle Show is not good day. When you wake up, the bed is cold, yet your body feels hot and humid. You go downstairs and almost black out halfway down the stairs. You read the newspaper with a dull headache stuck in the back of your mind. You feel ill as you sip your chamomile tea, alone. Austin has already left to go see Vinnie and Emily. 

(You are too sick to wonder if that makes this day a little worse or a little better.) 

Austin comes back a little after eleven o’clock and takes you on a walk. The weather is too cold and the penetrating smell of fresh hay makes you nauseous. You don't tell Austin this. 

You think you should have. Austin has the audacity to ask you for a child. You think you might faint as you hear the words. “You swore you didn’t marry me for that reason,” you spit. 

“And I didn’t,” he promises quickly. “But Sue, I feel like something is missing from my life.” 

He takes your hand in his. “Wouldn’t it be nice to have something to take care of?” 

You feel light in your head. “Why don’t you take care of me?” you say, a sickeningly sweet smile on your lips, “And buy me a new horse.” 

As you walk away, tears prick in your eyes and blood wells up in your mouth. It always seems to, on the bad days. 

You throw up in the bushes behind the barn. 

// 

Emily wins a backing contest later that day. You congratulate her on her victory. She looks giddy and beautiful and ridiculously happy and your heart lights up to see her like that. 

Half an hour later, you see Emily and Sam going for a walk together. Your lips form an almost involuntary grin. This is how you pictured it – this is what she wants. Fame, recognition, acclaim. This is what you want. For her to be your best friend, and your best friend only. Nothing more, nothing less. Space to breathe more easily, a little less desire coursing through you veins, _control_. 

Here’s the thing: it was not some grand scheme, some master plan to distance yourself from Emily. You wanted her to be happy. In the beginning, you truly believed it was in both of your best interests to ensure yourself that Sam would publish Emily. You truly believed it was a good thing to push Emily towards Sam, and in turn a little bit away from you. 

In hindsight, you should have known that desire blooms the fastest in denial. 

And so does jealousy, for that matter. 

(Austin apologizes to you that same night, after the party – he buys you the merry and her foal and a new necklace and he kisses you like a dazzling sunrise. 

“I promise I won’t ask you for a child again,” he tells you. You don't know if that's enough, but you stay silent. 

When he takes your head in his hands, the cold metal of his wedding ring presses against your skin, leaving an imprint on your face. You feel its sharp edges sliding open your entire cheek, desperately trying to make you spill the words to him. And his tongue, sinking into your open mouth, _begging_ to let the secrets about your infidelity, about your miscarriage, about Emily tumble right off your tongue, into his mouth. 

You are silent as he takes of his shirt and kisses your neck. You stay silent as he undresses you. You are silent when he opens your legs and thrusts into you, when he tells you that he loves you and that you are the most gorgeous woman he has ever seen. You are silent and bite your tongue when he comes. 

You are silent, and you think of blood). 

_//_

You dream about her, some nights. 

Mostly nebulous, cloudy visions, these disjointed images of things that you associate with her – a honey-like voice reciting a poem, an erupting volcano, bumblebees and sunlight, roses, tangerines, long, slender fingers full of ink, dark curls laid out on a pillow, an orchard stretching out endlessly before you, a wedding dress, white candles, the smell of old paper, a lake. 

At the end of the dream, she usually takes your head in her hands and kisses you. You feel her warm hand against your cheek; there is never a wedding ring on her finger. 

When you wake up, her name is on your tongue and your hand is pressed between damp thighs. 

You never give yourself the satisfaction. You have denied yourself this for too long, you can’t throw caution to the wind now. You simply can’t allow yourself this. 

You always put your hand around Austin’s body and just go back to sleep instead. 

It’s a lot easier than people might think it’d be. You have Austin. You have Sam. It should be enough. It is enough. 

(You just forgot that denying yourself something for long enough only makes you want it more.) 

// 

The remainder of the week progresses slowly but surely – you host your salons, you ride your new horse, you make a quick appearance at a ball in Concord, you nudge Emily towards Sam a bit more and Sam towards Emily a bit more. 

Everything is finally going how it is supposed to go. 

// 

She visits you on Friday. Her hair is messy and uncombed, it looks like she hasn’t slept all night and she has this hazy look in her eyes. 

You think she looks breathtakingly beautiful. 

“Sue. I wanna be published,” she laughs, almost hysterically. 

“You do?” you ask. 

“Yes. I have to be published or I’ll die,” she says. You smirk. Austin is gone, Sam spent the night; the timing couldn’t be better. When she gives Sam her poem, you couldn’t be more pleased with yourself if you tried. You told him last night that you were trying so hard to get Emily to want to be published. And here she is, only mere hours later, _wanting_ that very thing. 

This is it, you think: the higher the climb, the better the view. 

(But oh Sue, here’s the other thing you forgot to mention: _the higher the climb, the harder the fall_ ). 

// 

Fate is a funny thing. The hard fall starts when Austin tells you that Clara and Anna Newman are coming to live with you. 

Something inside you just _breaks_. 

You simply don’t know how to handle two living, breathing reminders of your past. Everything was going so well. _You_ were doing so well, with all your salons and your dresses and your horses and with Sam. You built yourself a shore with your bare hands to keep your nasty childhood and everything else away from you and still, all those waves. 

As he leaves, you start drowning. 

(Anna and Clara arrive later that afternoon. More tears are threatening to spill from your eyes, you can’t feel your legs and you taste something iron between your teeth when you look at them. 

Childhood ends in shame and sorrow, you gasp – and so will everything else.) 

// 

All the things denied yourself, they are like a house of cards – or a pyramid of champagne glasses, which seems a bit more suitable in this case. 

It’s inevitable: after one glass falls, every single one of them shatters. 

// 

Life goes on, you throw another soirée. This one is in honor of Emily and Sam. As you walk down the stairs, wearing your _intellectual spectacles_ , you suddenly see Emily and Sam. She is looking at him triumphantly and he is touching her dress ever so slightly. “Not as exciting as this dress,” you hear him grinning, “wow, it’s beautiful.” 

A dire, almost intuitive discomfort spreads through your ribcage. You cannot explain what is happening – you can’t even understand it yourself. 

(It’s the first emotion you let yourself feel in weeks; it throws you off completely). 

You try not to think about what that means and put on your big, white teeth-smile you reserve for your parties. You clap your hands as you walk towards Sam and Emily. “Look, my guests of honor are here. The editor and his poet,” you say, and your voice quivers in a way you don't like. 

The uncomfortable sensation has nestled itself in your stomach and you don’t quite know what to do with yourself, and instinctively you look at Emily. Your throat closes up. 

Emily’s lips are red and plump, her eyes shine, she smells faintly like tangerines and she wears this burgundy dress with a very low-cut neckline, which shouldn’t matter but somehow it does. 

It involuntarily reminds you of the past, when the two of you were young, when everything was easy, easier than this at least. In the few seconds that you look at Emily, that melancholy provokes something in you that is so intense, something that is suddenly almost physically in the room and something you can see moving towards you, desperately begging to swallow you whole. 

You have to force yourself to tear your eyes away from her. “Sam, thank you for coming,” you tell him instead. And Emily, thank you as well, you want to say. You want to say something, anything, everything but - 

_“Emily, you look gorgeous.”_

It comes out before you can stop yourself. You almost bite the inside of your cheek. The way she glances at you, her face flushed and fantastically sweet, makes you all hot and feverish and you _want_ – 

“I’m not sure I wore the right thing, Sue,” she half-whispers to you. 

“Darling, you look _perfect_ ,” you tell her, because she does. She smiles at you with eyes bright like morning stars and - 

“When is the poem coming out?” Abby asks.

You can see Sam thinking. “Next week I think,” he decides. “Maybe Wednesday? Maybe Friday. We have a few things lined up.”

You throw him a look. “Push them all back," you demand. "Emily’s voice needs to be heard. Don’t you agree?”

He smirks at you. “I agree."

As the conversation ends, you assure Sam and Emily that you are thrilled that you could bring the two of them together, because you are, and that it almost feels like destiny, and yet – 

_Yet –_

(You look at her and you are full of love. You think of something you haven’t allowed yourself to think of in a long time. You think: I’ll always _want_ you, Em. There will always be love for you in my body. My love for you has swallowed me whole. My love for you is weaved into the very fabric of who I am.) 

(You look at Sam throwing a signature smirk at you and you wonder: who am I supposed to be jealous of?)

(You look at Emily giggling with Sam and you wonder: is he a promise I made to you, or a threat?)

(You look at her lips and your first glass falls). 

(She asks you about the rumors, about Mary. A pang of guilt seeps through your body. You lie to her. She can’t know. It’s too much. 

Your second glass starts to shudder lightly.) 

(She sneaks off with Sam during the lecture, you swallow. The rest of the glasses are tilting to the side.) 

(There is this one moment where the tide seems to turn, where you think that the analogy doesn’t add up – if one glass falls, not all of them have to. 

After you enter the library and find Sam and Emily standing close to one another, the glasses seem to tilt even further, almost to the inevitable point – 

But as the conversation progresses, they hold back, they stay still. Sam assures you that he will still write an article about your soirée and you remember what you are doing all of this for. Control. 

“And the greatest poet in Massachusetts,” you say, beaming with pride. You intertwine Emily’s fingers with yours as you tell Sam this. The glasses stay in place. 

Your pyramid is stable once more as you go check on Anna and Clara.) 

(But then Emily leaves with this passionate, almost obsessive look in her eyes and you, like a _fucking_ fool, couldn’t stop staring at her lips the entire night and you _know_ who she is thinking about, and you _know_ it’s not you, it’s – 

… and there goes your carefully crafted pyramid). 

//

It’s funny how envy and want are almost the exact same thing. They will eat both you, if you allow it. 

And oh, how you want it to. Jealousy has never been a good look on you. You have denied yourself this for far too long and far too often. It’s not about control anymore - this is something else entirely. This is a deep seated, white hot longing, a spite that has burned you from within. Your glasses have fallen down and you’ll never try to force them back up now. 

Emily looked thrillingly beautiful tonight and her lips - 

And so that night, as she thinks of him, you think of her. 

You tumble back onto your bed, melt into the mattress and think of her. 

Your hand finds the wetness between your legs and you envision Emily next to you - your skin, her skin, your hands, her hands. You start to think about how it used to be. How it used to be, something you never let yourself think about anymore. 

You are overcome with this sudden hunger and you don't know what to do with yourself.

You start to think about how she must be lying on her bed right now, thinking of him. How he is lying only five feet way from you now, only a wall separating the two of you. How maybe he’s thinking of you right now, as you think of her, as she thinks of him. How she couldn't stop looking at him the entire night. A red rage sprouts from your toes, curling - 

A red rose, a sunset, a dress, _lips_.

A burgundy, a white-hot fire burning at the edges of your mind, crawling its way up your body and blazing trails across your skin. Every bit of you ripped open, ripped apart, raw and exposed, and burns flared on every inch of your body -

You want Emily to taste you, to touch you, to hollow you out, to swallow you whole – warm, close, soft and pressed up against you. You whimper and you are smashed into oblivion. How would she sound – low moans and high gasps. How she would look – beautiful, the same yet different, like a promise spread out before you, all pale skin and smooth curves and that small freckle on her hipbone, exactly how you remember her and more. You _want_ \- 

And -

And -

Unravel me, you tremble, your toes curling. Do to me what you want to do to him. Please. Consume me, because I would let you. I’d let you, I’d let you. _Always._

And as you come apart at your seams, your eyes fly open and it feels like everything you’ve ever known has been a lie. 

//

In the morning, when the sunlight pours through the windows and Austin is gently snoring next to you and Sam in the other room, you pretend it never happened. 

That’s okay for now; one night was enough to crack you wide open. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idk if this chapter makes any sense, but i just had to get it out. let me know what you think, i always love your comments! and thank you for the lovely comments on the first chapter!
> 
> i also tried to keep the ending a bit open??? because i have NO idea what episode 6 is going to bring, or if sue was even jealous at all in episode 5 lol, but there was definitely SOMETHING going on. i can't be the only one who picked up on the weird vibe that surrounds sam. and what's going on with his wife, mary??? who is apparently so much like emily??? much to think about. 
> 
> perhaps i'll make a third chapter if enough people want me to :)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sue's feelings through 2x06 (and a little bit beyond)

You are Sue Dickinson, you are twenty-one years old and you have to remind yourself of this multiple times a day when you look in the mirror.

The woman you see is not one you recognize. You built yourself another you – alluring, wealthy, picture-perfect Suzie, a woman with great parties, a woman who is in love with her husband ( _a woman who has an affair with her best friend's editor_ , your mind hisses at you), a woman who has everything she _wants._

This other version of you, you are trying stupidly hard to make her yours, all these attempts to _be_ her – you don't know if you'll ever fully succeed.

Because here’s the thing, you realize: every version of you is still you at the end of the day. It’s impossible to create another you. You live through yourself, not beside yourself. 

You tried, but you are the same person you always were. This is who you are.

(Still, you can’t simply go back to being that person.

You spent almost an entire year building yourself, fabricating a beautiful palace to conceal your old life in, sculpting the perfect new existence within the marble walls.

You don’t remember what it’s like to live inside this body with just one version of you. The person smiling in the mirror doesn’t know who she is; she has trouble distinguishing herself from her other self. 

There is a stranger inside of you, a _ghost_ in your own flesh. 

This ghost doesn’t leave because of one single night. You wouldn’t know where to begin – even if there are cracks in your walls now, in the pillars and monoliths, you can’t simply change. Your marble has weakened, but not broken, the mortar eaten away, but not gone.

A ghost returns and returns and returns, it haunts you, even if your ghost sprouted from a love as shallow as a material one.)

//

You travel to Boston by night – the journey takes a little more than seven hours. Austin sleeps for almost six of them, snoring quietly.

You are wide awake. You don’t sleep a lot these days.

You take in Austin’s features and play absentmindedly with his hair, you read some poetry in the faint moonlight, you hum a melody to lull Austin back to sleep a few times. You feel empty but rather peaceful, a feeling that slips through your fingers too often lately.

You start to feel tired at around four o’clock in the morning. Sunlight is already seeping through the curtains of the carriage when you finally allow yourself to doze of. 

In your sleep, you dream of her. You almost always dream of her when you don't spend the night with Sam. Tangerines, blooming flowers in orchards, sultry summer nights drenched in love, her bed, volcanoes, nothing in the world except you two –

You wake feeling heavy and drenched in want. 

This is why you are afraid of sleep. 

(The want in your body was never meant to be a mere seed. It has bloomed into a beautiful, deadly flower, a flower which has wound its roots tightly around your throat, suffocating you.)

//

The opera house is stunningly _beautiful_ – all golden ornaments, pastel-colored ceiling art, grand stairs with velvet.

You and Austin make light conversation with some friends and acquaintances. The dazzling smiles thrown your way and the compliments about your dress combined with the occasional champagne flute make you feel warm and fuzzy inside.

When you spot Emily, you stumble back a little.

She comes walking up to you in this captivatingly velvet dark blue dress and greets you enthusiastically. The rest of the Dickinsons follow her.

“Sue, you look _incredible_ ,” Emily sighs, after leaning forward to kiss your cheek, admiring your dress. It makes your head spin.

“So do all of you,” you say, grinning. 

You hand your coat to Austin, gush with Vinnie about Adelaide May and her unique singing voice, you are drunk enough to let yourself enjoy how Emily looks like _that_ –

“ _He came_ ,” Emily suddenly gasps. Her eyes illuminate, the briefest of seconds, as she sees Sam, and you suddenly feel an itching in your hands and in your chest.

You tell yourself your hands are shuddering because Sam is looking rather handsome tonight. 

“Sam, thank you so much for your help with the tickets. We’re thrilled to be up in that box,” you tell him, an attempt to make your hands stop trembling. It doesn't work.

When the Dickinson leave to find their seats, Emily tells her father she has to talk to you, and you wonder why.

Your hands twitch ever so slightly when she admits that she just wants to talk to Sam. “Of course, the poet needs a word with her editor,” you smirk.

Emily _beams_.

You ask him where Mary is. He says that Mary is unwell, again. You don’t know if that’s the truth or a lie. You're not certain you want to know.

“Well, I guess it’s a lucky break for Emily,” you force yourself to say, trying not to think about how your voice sounds two octaves higher than it normally does all of a sudden.

“For me?” Emily asks, confused.

“Yes, because now you can sit with Sam in his box,” you say. 

He refuses, but you persuade him to take Emily with him anyways. Men, you think. They're all the same. 

It’s nice to be able to control something again, even if it’s just this, even if it’s just Sam.

(As you watch them leave together, your hands start stinging again. You smile tight-lipped and tell yourself that’s a good thing. 

It must be the satisfaction of finally having them together. This a good thing, this is something you _wanted_ since introducing them.

Emily is leaving with Sam, giggly and cheerful and touching his upper arm, and your hands sting.

The story works better if that’s a good thing.)

//

You sit in your box alone and wait for Austin. You drink champagne. You glance at Emily and Sam once in a while. You order a second glass of champagne. You are still alone. People start giving you funny looks. You order a third glass of champagne.

Your third glass is almost empty when Austin comes back. You ask him what took him so long.

You can tell he is annoyed when you don’t know who Frazar Stearns is. That, in turn, annoys you.

How can you expect me to know all of your friends, when you don’t even know me? You want to scream. You don’t know the first thing about me. You _don’t_. 

You say nothing. You hold your tongue – you are used to the feeling of having a blade in your mouth when talking to Austin.

Austin takes a sip of his champagne. “ _God_ , I miss the old gang. Maybe I should organize a reunion,” he says. “Those were the days, man.”

He stares at the podium melodramatically and mumbles, “we used to have such good times.”

Your head snaps. It's like all air left your lungs. “You still have good times. Don’t you?” you ask.

This time, he says nothing.

The taste of champagne fades as blood pools in your mouth.

//

As soon as La Traviata begins, you are _enthralled_. The blood disappears and you only have eyes for the performance.

And for Emily and Sam. 

You can feel Emily staring at you and when Austin whispers, _“It looks like one of your parties”_ , you feel compelled to look back.

Emily is staring at you from across the opera house, a look you can’t decipher, and the all-too familiar rushes of desire shoot up your spine and spread through your entire body, head to toe, before she looks away.

(Desire is an animal – everyone knows that. But which animal exactly? 

Most people would probably imagine a lion, or a wolf, perhaps. But could it be something else? A lark, you wonder, as you hear Adelaide May’s voice and think of Emily?

Does the lark stop singing as soon as the desire leaves its body, or is bestiary somewhere else, closer to the hands, or the fingers?)

//

Sam stands up halfway through the show and you’re one part relieved and two parts annoyed. This was not how it was supposed to go.

As he leaves, you look at Emily, her presence suddenly like a swarm of bees humming from across the opera house, begging you to come closer.

(It’s not her stinging you’re afraid of – it’s your own. Your hands are aching, so much, it has become almost unbearable.

You look at her anyways, simply because you can’t help yourself.)

//

The performance ends and you applaud.

Austin wipes away a tear.

It’s only then when you realize that you were so busy staring at Emily that you missed almost the entire opera.

//

Austin leaves to meet Frazar.

There is a certain kind of sting in the way he tells you to go home with whoever you want.

It’s not like the sting in your hands – it’s _much_ , much worse.

//

The stairs are crowded, the audience buzzing with excitement from the riveting performance. You mumble excuses as you make your way to the lavatory as quickly as possible.

You close the door behind you, look in the mirror and you are _stunned_. Your cheeks blush a crimson red, but your skin is such a delicate shade of white it’s almost porcelain. Your forehead looks sweaty and you feel deliriously hot.

The longer you glance at yourself, the more tears well up behind your eyelids.

You think, well, at least the lavatory’s empty.

You’ve gotten used to carrying a certain kind of emptiness over the last year. You wear it around you like a cape, something to be uprooted and worn proudly around the shoulders so that people won’t see how much it weighs you down.

(You have no trouble confessing to yourself that you’re empty, you can admit that you crave control. When you see yourself in the mirror, even the rage that has been coursing through your hands all night is something you can accept.

This is what you can’t admit to yourself: your emptiness, your control, even your rage – these are all just suffixes of your _want_.)

//

Outside, it’s dark and it rains. There is no carriage in sight.

You contemplate on going back inside, but you don’t want to be seen by Austin or his friends. So you do the next best thing, which is huffing and leaning against the wall, waiting for a carriage. 

Your head spins. The rain keeps pouring.

After waiting for a while, it starts to feel bizarrely cathartic, to allow the rain to lick your body clean with its cold tears and make you solid again.

You close your eyes for a few seconds and when you open them again, you suddenly spot an unkempt man stumbling out of an alley, visibly inebriated, walking towards you.

“Hey Miss,” you yells, grinning. He misses two teeth.

“Are ya cold, Miss?” he continues. “’Cause I bet I could warm you up.”

You panic and turn your back to him. “You’re not alone, are ya, Miss?” the man yells, and you hear him coming closer. You hurry towards the door of the building and you -

“No, she isn’t,” a voice suddenly quips up from behind you. Vinnie smiles and links her arm through yours. “I’ve got her. Thanks for asking, though!”

Behind her, you see Ship and Emily, both with concerned looks on their faces. The man stumbles back into the alley.

“Are you okay?” Emily asks, visibly shaken. She takes your hands in hers.

“Yeah, you good? He was a _fucking_ creep,” Ship adds, nodding.

You nod. Your heart is pounding in your ears. “I’m fine,” you manage.

Vinnie and Emily guide you towards a carriage. “I saw Austin at the bar with his friends. You can’t spend the night alone after an encounter like this. You’re coming back with us to Aunt Lavinia’s,” Vinnie says.

“She wouldn’t mind?” you ask, your voice weak.

“ _Hell no_ ,” Ship immediately says, and Lavinia gives him a look.

“No, she wouldn’t. You’re _family_ , Sue,” she assures you and there’s something about the way she looks at Emily after that makes you think her words have nothing to do with the fact that you’re Austin’s wife.

//

The carriage ride back is cold and wet. It’s still pouring, the sound of the rain clattering against the windows.

Lavinia and Ship murmur quietly, and Emily nods every once in a while, when she agrees with something. You rest your head on Emily’s shoulder and look at the damp, dark grass of the hills and meadows you pass, the hyacinths and daffodils on the riversides, the lakes, stare up at the brilliant-cold starlight and allow yourself to think of nothing for the first time in a very long time.

//

You leave a telegram for Austin and change into one of Vinnie's spare nightgowns. Ship makes you a bed on the couch in the living room, next to the crackling fireplace.

Vinnie gives you and Emily warm milk with honey. “You deserve it,” she whispers. You sip it in silence, both of you with small smiles on your faces. There’s a certain kind of serenity within you that night that you don’t recognize, yet the kind that feels familiar. 

When your cups are empty, Emily stands up. “Have sweet dreams, Sue,” she tells you as she closes the door, and for the first time in weeks, _you have_.

(Here’s the thing: Emily is as beautiful as endless to you, a sea of dwelling possibilities – but she is also the person you discover yourself with. In this world, it is far too common for people to search for someone to get lost into. You don't know who you are anymore; one might say you lost yourself in Austin, or in Sam, even.

But you didn’t lose yourself in Emily, you never lost yourself in Emily – you _found_ yourself.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2x06 was a WORK OF ART and i couldn't NOT write about it. 
> 
> fun fact: this chapter mainly sprouted from the fact that sue kept touching her hands the entire episode??? once i saw it i couldn’t stop seeing it and i started writing about it (as one does) somehow that became a 2k chapter. so yeah. 
> 
> also can we get more of sue and vinnie???? please???
> 
> please leave a comment to tell me how you feel about this chapter :)
> 
> (btw unpopular opinion: i actually quite like this season! yes, it’s a bit of a hot mess now, but i quite like that! and i have faith in the last few episodes, especially the finale. i really think that they are going to tie up all the loose ends quite nicely.)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is sue's pov through episodes 7 and 8!
> 
> can't believe i had to rewrite chapter 2 and 3 because sue decided to be annoying and sleep with loras tyrell :/
> 
> if you want to understand the full (new) story, i'd suggest you reread chapter 2 and 3, as i've changed and added some things!

You are Sue Dickinson, you are twenty-one years old and for the very first time in a long time, you are _content._

The weeks after the opera pass by steadily – you read more books than you did in the past year, you and Vinnie try out a new recipe for sweet potato pie (which fails _spectacularly_ ), you host a few small salons, you take a warm bath, you teach Clara how to play the violin, Sam comes over for coffee (and sex) and promises you he’s going to publish Emily’s poem soon, you go for walks more often, you sleep dreamlessly, you let Austin kiss you on the lips again.

You finally start seeing again, a perspective of some kind. You are once again someone you know. You don’t feel _good_ , necessarily. But you do feel better, and not in the fleeting way you usually do. Breathing is easier. The air around you feels clearer, somehow. 

You feel bubbly. For the very first time since your wedding day, the taste of blood has left your body. For the very first time since introducing Sam and Emily, you are not suffocating in your want anymore. Everything is finally going how you envisioned it. Everything is finally going how it’s supposed to go. This is what you’re doing all of it for.

(Still, you miss certain things. You miss the feeling of the carriage ride back to Aunt Lavinia’s, Emily, the rain. You miss how bright the stars were in Boston.)

//

Three weeks after the opera, Mrs. Dickinson invites you to the water cure.

Your cheeks involuntarily flush when you see Emily in nothing but a towel. You sit down next to Mrs. Dickinson and close your eyes, try to focus on the heat and Aunt Lavinia’s voice.

Emily keeps looking at you. For a fleeting second, you think it’s going to feel like the opera all over again. It doesn’t. There is no deliriousness, no desire, no trembling hands.

Emily hisses your name. You open and close your eyes again. She sits down next to you. She tells you to scoot over. You feel her shoulder touch yours. There is only a small flutter in your chest, nothing remarkable. 

Here’s the thing: the last few months were centuries long. 

The past has gone see-through so quickly, you almost forgot that you used to think of Emily as your best friend. 

You’ve been so fixated on pushing Emily towards Sam, trying to get her to be a published poet, that you almost forgot that want is about more than grief, jealousy, shame, denial, _men_. Want can be tranquil – it used to be quiet. It used to be less smothering.

You forgot how easy Emily makes things, if you let it.

She stands up and holds your hand. You’re appalled by how normal this feels. This is what you've been doing all of this for. You're finally there - this is _it_. You sigh in relief.

“Where are you going?” Mrs. Dickinson asks. “We paid for seventeen more minutes in here.”

“Oh, well, I thought it might be nice for us to try the body healer,” Emily answers.

Aunt Lavinia gasps enthusiastically. “ _Oh_ , I’ve heard great things about her. She’s very moon-oriented!”

Emily grins, “Exactly,” she says, and you take a look her holding your hand, “big fan of that.”

_God_ , Em, I’ve missed feeling like this around you, you think as you intertwine your fingers once more when you walk up the stairs to find the body healer together.

//

Emily talks about Sam at the body healer. It’s not unexpected, but it is rather unpleasant.

She comes to you with the same worries each time and you tell her the same thing each time – it’s going to be _okay_.

“Now Sam’s never going to publish my poem,” Emily complains. “He’s done with me.”

“Emily,” you say, calm. “Of course he’s going to publish it. He’s going to publish everything you write.”

You wish you could tell her that she doesn’t have to be afraid, because you’re handling this, you _got_ this. You know Sam is going to publish her, because he told you this three days ago. To be precise, he murmured it to you when he had his head between your thighs on the sofa, but you can’t tell her that.

“Sam is going to publish you for sure,” you say. This is all you can give her. “Emily, this anxiety you’re experiencing, it’s natural. This is a big step for you, your career. You’re putting yourself out there and it’s stirring up a lot of emotion. But that’s good. I mean, you of all people know what to do with emotion. Put it on the page, write about it. Turn it into art.”

“But I don’t believe in myself anymore,” Emily mumbles.

You think you might have heard her wrong – you want to have heard her wrong. “Wait, _what_?” you say.

She tells you that she used to have this confidence, but not since she met Sam. “And Sue, I hate to say this, but it’s your fault,” she adds.

You are appalled. _“My fault?”_

You don’t resent Emily for saying that, but there’s a tinge of frustration tugging in your mind. I invited him that night _just_ so he could publish you, you think. I've done so much to push him towards you, can't you see that? But then you realize, no, she can't. So you force yourself to take a deep breath and listen to her rant.

“Can you please say something? Because I feel like I’m losing my mind,” Emily whines. 

“Emily, relax,” you order. You try to make your voice sound as finite as possible. “All you need to do is do nothing. Breathe, exhale.”

She does.

“ I promise you, it’s all going to be okay. Sam is going to publish your poem. You just need to trust him,” you tell her. It's not the right thing to say, because you don't even trust him yourself.

But it’s all you can give her now – you hope it’s enough.

//

The remainder of the water cure is quite eventful. You don't think about Sam anymore, but let yourself enjoy the different treatments. You’ve never been to a spa before and are amazed by all the cures – the plunge pool, the water face splash treatment, some sort of yoga in a large, metal bathtub/bucket, rubdown massages, lying on hot coals, all of it.

You are on your way to the last treatment of the day when you run into George.

You do your very best to make small talk with him, but you both realize very quickly you two have only ever spoken to each other through Emily. It makes the both of you laugh.

“Sue?” George grins shyly as he leaves, scratching his head in a very boyish manner. “Take care of Emily for me, will ya?”

You want to reply with something witty, something Emily would tell him. That Emily is her own woman, that she’s perfectly capable of managing herself, that she doesn’t need anyone to take care of her. 

But you’re Sue. So you don’t. Instead, you nod and smile politely like the good girl you are. Old habits die hard. “I will. Thank you, George,” you say, and you think: I am. I'm giving her the greatest thing in the world: fame.

//

You and Emily share a carriage back to Amherst. The two of you sit in a comfortable silence. A few times, Emily points out a beautiful flower at the side of the road. You smile in return. You don’t rest your head on Emily’s shoulder, this time, you barely even touch. 

Still, it’s nice in a way you can’t decipher. It reminds you of easier times.

You arrive in Amherst around four o'clock. You step out of the carriage first, Emily goes after you.

As Emily closes the carriage door, she sighs. “I have to say, I…”

You turn around.

“I feel better,” Emily smiles – warm and soft.

You smile back. “I do too.” A small pause. “Maybe you’ll be able to write tonight.”

Emily nods. “Maybe I will.”

“I’m rooting for you,” you tell her. It’s a gesture you know you didn’t have to make. Her easy smile makes your heart flutter, nonetheless.

You turn around again. “See you around, neighbor,” Emily says, still smiling.

You bite the inside of your cheek and blush the whole way home. The feeling of contentment, you think.

//

(You should have known by now, this won't last. It's the same circle every single time. The good things ebb away – hastily and roughly – the blood returns.

You have known this since you were nine years old. The taste and feeling of blood should be savored, or it else you end up _choking_ on it.)

//

You wake up the next day and read Emily’s poem in the paper. You are so proud of your best friend.

It’s going to be a good day, you decide.

And it is, until Emily is nowhere to be found. 

You bought her a new inkwell, and a peach cobbler to celebrate her publication – peach cobbler is usually reserved for birthdays, but you feel cautiously optimistic about today.

You think you shouldn’t have when you open the door to her room only to find her room empty, bed unmade, blank sheets of paper on her desk. You can’t find it in yourself to enter the room. You close the door and make your way downstairs. You stall the presents out in the kitchen.

Mrs. Dickinson tells you Emily has been gone all day. “I have no idea where my daughter is,” she shrugs, viciously dusting off the cuckoo clock in the living room. “But this is so typical for Emily, don’t you think? I can’t be bothered to go look for her.”

//

You spend the rest of the day getting ready for the party and feeling more miserable as the day goes on – your hair is lifeless and oily, Austin accidentally spills orange juice on your dress, the singer you hired for tonight has become ill and is unable to perform at your salon, Clara and Anna have somehow gotten their hands on some of Emily’s poems that were hidden in the back of your closet and have scattered the papers all around the house, having drawn middle fingers and small turds in the margins.

Your salon is the culminating point. It is deadly boring – only seven people show up, Emily is not even there and you feel downright pathetic. A dull headache has been resting in the back of your mind the entire day, patiently waiting to strike, and is now slowly seeping to the front, spreading to the bridge of your nose, your temples, the crown of your head.

(It’s inevitable. It always has been and it always will be. You should know this by now. You should know that you are not equal to your hurt. Somewhere there should be a place the exact shape of your hurt in your body – there should be another place responsible for taking it back.

There is not. This is why your hurt can only be stored temporarily, stored somewhere warm and safe.

In the end, the blood will always return to your body, for it is its seed.)

//

Sam is late. He asks you where Emily is. You tell him that she has been missing all day. He doesn’t understand, and neither do you.

You turn around, close your eyes and let yourself breathe in and breathe out in a desperate attempt to get rid of your headache, only to find Sam and Austin talking to each other when you open them. You sense an even heavier lightness in your head than before.

“What in the world are you talking about?” you manage, hurrying towards Austin and Sam.

“The painting,” Sam answers casually. He takes a bite out of his apple. “It’s a reproduction.”

“They told me it was the original,” Austin whines.

You scoff, but only for Austin’s sake, because you can’t find yourself to truly care. 

“Well, who cares if it’s real as long as it looks good, right?” you attempt to joke, but Austin doesn’t seem to think it’s funny.

As he leaves to find Emily, you start to feel dizzy. You look around the room. _Well, who cares if it’s real as long as it looks good, right?_

All of a sudden, the nauseating copper sting of blood penetrates your mouth again.

The bitter taste of your childhood is so familiar that feels like it never left you.

//

There has always been something between lost and saved about the way you feel when Sam touches you. That's not a bad thing, necessarily. At least he does a better job than Austin, who is all soft hands, soft kisses, soft thrusts. Too soft. 

Sam isn't soft. When you lead him into the library that night, he devours you, and you let him. You always let him. It feels deliriously good, to be the object of this kind of desire. You don't know if you want him, but you do want what he is giving to you. You do know that he _wants_ you.

Sam wants you, _hard_ \- he kisses you and he devours you and you are begging him to savor every drop of blood right out of your mouth. 

He settles between your legs. You open your eyes wide – you gasp as see Emily in front of you.

You only ever think of her, you have never _seen_ her, physically, right here in front of you.

(Scientifically, you know, there is no such thing. Visions of people are nothing more than your mind playing tricks on you. This is a hallucination, probably because of your headache, probably because you're tired and hollow and kind of drunk and because you just need to feel something. This is a hallucination.

Still, the image of Emily flashes clearly through this thick velvet air.) 

In the library, in this lucid image of Emily, you fold. You are pretending you're Sam and Emily is you and you think, _yes_ , this is it. You can see yourself on your knees, between her legs, and you pretend the tension building up inside of you is building up inside Emily, and the hands you feel on your hips are yours on Emily's hips and -

You suffocate a desire, you steeple. This is the closest you can be to her now. His tongue on you, her eyes on you, your tongue on her, just enough pressure to split you and her wide open.

The shiver that runs through you at that thought goes so deep you think it might not have been made for humans.

You feel _sick_ for thinking about this, for many, many reasons, but you can't look away. You just keep looking at her and looking at her and looking at her and you just –

Your fantasy of Emily might be fake, you think, but the aching look in her eyes when you orgasm has never felt more real.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HOLY FUCK THIS EPISODE AM I RIGHT
> 
> this chapter is short and definitely not my best work, but i just wanted to get it out there. let me know what you think, i love reading your comments!
> 
> btw: no IDEA how often sue and sam slept together or what the reason behind it is (episode 9 pls i need answers), but this is just my interpretation :)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so much dialogue in this chapter i hate it but idk how to fix it <3
> 
> i didn't proofread this so my apologies for any mistakes, i just wanted to get this chapter out as soon as possible
> 
> also??? writing sex scenes is hard :/

Hallowed out grief is a boarding house. 

It is a boarding house with an endless number of rooms and corridors and windows, but no doors, no fire escapes, never any light.

In some of the rooms in your house, you’re hosting parties and you're wearing jewels from Europe and you feel delirious. In another room, a narrow, dark closet with a chain lock of which the key is lost, you’re grieving for something ( _someone_ ) you never knew. In some rooms, you read some of Emily’s poems tucked away in your closet and in other rooms, you smile at Austin, or you take Sam and make him do things to you you’ve never done before. In some rooms, your sister Mary dies in your arms. In one particularly small room, a broom closet without windows, you’re back as a governess in Boston.

In some rooms, you are quite satisfied with your life and your love, how much you have accomplished, how far you’ve come. In those same rooms, you often think about Sam and Emily, together or separate, and how well all of that worked out. In some rooms, you want and want and want. In some rooms you don’t. In other rooms, fewer rooms, you ache for your childhood, a childhood you wish you had known or for a childhood that was never even yours to begin with. 

In every room, you’re in love with Emily.

But hallowed out grief is and will always be a boarding house with a stern lady and blood on the walls.

(In your memory, you have a childhood.

In that house, you still live there.)

//

Sam doesn’t spend the night with you – he never spends the night with you.

You lie in bed next to Austin. He is snoring. It’s almost four in the morning and you still cannot sleep from the heat of your thoughts. The room is dark and there is a slight crack in the curtains of your window, a starless night.

You can’t stop thinking about Emily’s eyes. The way she looked into yours, how she couldn’t stop watching you, how she –

How she felt so _real._

You don’t know why you can’t stop thinking about that.

(You know why: Emily is the rose you cut from the stem, and still the stem remembers, still it wants (so much, it _wants_ ) the flower back.

You know this. You’ve always known this. You just pretend you don’t).

//

In the morning, you lift cold water to your face and close your eyes for a second. The memory of Emily’s eyes flashes through your mind again. You choke on your breath.

You quickly get dressed, drink some tea and leave a small note for Austin, telling him you’re taking the train to Springfield to see a friend.

//

The train is nearing its destination when you realize you’re wearing the same dress you wore to church a couple of weeks ago.

The realization is not a grand one, it doesn’t disgust you the way you thought it would. It does, however, makes you think of the look in Emily’s eyes again.

You’re too tired to figure out what that means.

//

Things never quite go how you think they’re going to go.

This is how you think it will go: you meet Mary, you make small talk and drink a cup of tea with her, you leave, you change out of this dress as soon as possible.

This is how it actually happens:

“Hello Mary,” you smile as she opens the door. “Remember me?”

“Suzie,” Mary breathes, confused but not unkind, “come on in.” 

She opens the front door wider to allow you to step into the house. You take off your coat. She leads you through the foyer into the living room. “Come on, take a seat. Would you like some tea?”

“That would be nice, thank you,” you reply, sitting down. Your tongue feels like chalk as you watch Mary disappear into the kitchen. You suddenly don’t know why you thought it would be a good idea, coming here.

After Mary has brought you tea, an uneasy silence lands on the two of you. You are still not certain what exactly it is that you’re doing here. You think Mary might have noticed.

All of a sudden, you see the portrait of Sam on the wall. It immediately makes your stomach sting. You take a sip of your tea to get rid of the nausea. 

“It’s so nice of you to come all this way,” Mary comments. 

“Oh, Mary, it’s nothing,” you answer immediately. It’s not nothing. It’s definitely _something_. But you don’t know what exactly. That’s why you say, “It’s been far too long. And it felt wrong you know, to see so much of Sam and so little of you.”

Mary chuckles. “Well, most people see more of Sam.” She nods towards his painting, but you can’t bear yourself to look again. “He loves to be out in the world. I prefer to stay home.”

“Of course, I know that,” you answer. “But Mary, I’ve missed you.”

“Have you?”

“You were once my dearest friend,” you say. “Do you remember that summer? That incredibly hot summer in Geneva when you and I would go swimming in the lake every day?” you giggle, thinking about the fond memories.

Mary doesn’t giggle. “Yes, that was the summer my father died,” she says.

“Oh,” you mutter. “Was it that summer?” You think about that summer and you realize you haven’t thought about this in forever – you don’t even remember the last time you thought of this. 

(Hallowed out grief is a boarding house, your mind hisses, and this room is _locked_ ).

“I thought that was the summer after. The summer my father died,” you mutter.

“No,” Mary comments, not unkindly, “your father died the year after my father.”

You know she is a good enough person not to say this, but you know she must think about how pathetic this is – not knowing the year of your own father’s death.

“God,” you sigh, an attempt to change the tone of this conversation, “what happy childhoods we both had.”

This time, Mary giggles right along with you – it feels nice. “Yes, things were difficult,” she says. “Although, looking back on it now, it seems like those were the easiest years of my life.”

“Really?” you say, the sudden uneasiness in your stomach rushing back. “Are things very hard?”

“Oh, you know, marriage, children, it’s all very challenging. And Sam Junior is just like his father.”

Her words make you shiver. “Is he? In what way?” 

Mary smiles, but you’ve known her long enough to know that this is not the happy kind. “Too much energy.”

You nearly vomit blood hearing those words.

“You and Austin, you don’t have children?” Mary asks.

You shake your head, taking sip of your tea. The nausea doesn’t go away.

Mary tells you that she read about your salons. It should be enough, you think – you should love hearing this. You shouldn’t feel _sick_ hearing this.

“The Evergreens – it’s really become the center of the world,” she marvels.

You smile, pray it doesn’t look too forced. “Yes – well, obviously, Sam has been a huge part of that, giving us such nice write-ups. He’s been so generous.”

You don’t know why you say this – you don’t know why you keep bringing up Sam. He is the last person you want to talk about. 

(You think, maybe I say this, because there’s a part of me that wants to ruin myself. Maybe I say this, just to see how much longer I can live with myself.)

“Well, knowing Sam, he must be getting something in return,” Mary says.

You tremble. “In return?” 

“Yes. Some Amherst lady has caught his eye, no doubt.”

You don’t know what to say. Blood rises in your mouth. _“I –”_ you start, choking.

“But for now, I’m very glad he was able to use his influence to help you,” Mary interrupts you. “I’ve always loved you, Suzie. You were such a dear friend.”

You look at the fire. The taste of copper in your mouth is so all-consuming you are terrified it will gush out of your mouth if you open it, bleeding right onto the carpet.

You keep looking at the fire, swallow and say nothing – desperately wanting the taste to leave, wanting, wanting, _wanting_.

God, you’re so fucking sick of wanting.

//

(How often and long can you lick your wounds to keep yourself from bleeding out?

How many times have you choked already?

How many years go by before you’re no longer scared of it?

How many more of this tortured half-erupting can you endure?)

(How much longer before the taste of the blood becomes truly unbearable?)

//

It takes you few moments to gather yourself. “I was sorry to hear that you’ve been sick,” you try. “Are you better now?”

“Sick?” Mary questions, confused.

You hum, still not trusting your voice entirely.

“Oh,” Mary says, staring at the fire. “Oh, I see. That’s what Sam’s been telling everyone.”

You don’t understand. “So, you haven’t been sick?”

“Not, physically, no,” Mary admits.

“So, what then?” you ask. You shudder; you’re not sure you want to know.

The look on her face when she tells you makes you want to throw up. “You see,” she half-smiles, tears in her eyes. “We were going to have a baby girl this year.”

You gasp. The blood in your veins is pounding, it surges through you, cracking you in half.

“But, she died. Inside of me.”

“God, Mary. I’m so sorry,” you murmur. Warm blood pools in your mouth like never before.

“I just… lost it,” Mary whispers.

You open your mouth – you half-expect all the blood to seep out. You close it, open it again. 

“Something like that… Something like that happened to me,” you confess, breaking in front of her. “It’s like I’ve been trying to… I’ve been trying to push the pain away.”

“You don’t have to push it away,” Mary says. Her words are like a warm cloth on your wounds. “It’s okay to feel it.”

 _It’s okay to feel it._

It’s okay to feel it. 

It’s okay to feel it.

It’s like a mantra in your head. The tears come fast and unexpectedly – you don’t remember the last time you let yourself cry. The tears are hot and salt, they slice open your cheeks and your heart and you wonder if blood can pour out through your eyes.

(Somewhere in the back of your mind, the small, dark room, the room you kept so desperately locked, _opens_ ).

(This is how you thought it would go: you met Mary, you made small talk and drank a cup of tea with her, you left, you changed out of this dress as soon as possible.

This is what actually happens when it’s all said and done: the devastating luxury of grief consumes you like nothing else has ever done before.

And this time, you don’t push it away.)

//

(I don’t deserve this. Mary’s hand is warm on yours and you think, I don’t deserve this.)

//

You leave Mary’s house in the late afternoon, teary-eyed and feverish. She has just closed the door behind her when all of a sudden two young boys come running up to you. They must be Mary and Sam’s children, you think, Samuel and Edward. The oldest can’t be older than twelve. He has dark blonde curls and piercing blue eyes. You’ve seen him before, but he was much younger then. You’re pretty certain he doesn’t remember you. 

“Hello, my name is Samuel Bowles Junior,” the boy introduces himself, smiling charmingly. He extends his hand.

“Hi, I’m Sue Di –” 

You don’t know why, but you don’t finish the sentence. Instead, you take a deep breath, smile and let him shake your hand in a very chivalrous manner before you speak again.

“Hello, I’m Sue Gilbert,” you tell him. The corners of your mouth turn upwards. Your name tastes unfamiliar in your mouth, but not unpleasant.

Samuel Junior nods formally. “Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

You turn to the younger boy, who has darker hair. He looks a lot more like Mary. “Then you must be Edward.” 

“Teddy,” he lisps, his chin held up high in the air like Mary used to do when she was younger.

“What?”

“I would like to be called Teddy, Mrs. Gilbert. Not Edward.”

Your eyes widen. You are so sick with grief you can hardly look at yourself – and here Teddy stands, in front of you, like a perfect mirror.

Nine-year-old Edward who wants to be called Teddy -

(Nine-year-old Edward turns nine-year-old Susan who wants to be called Sue, and for a split second, you think you’re going to black out. 

Want for you, from that moment on, was always something heavy, something you had to carry with your bare hands. Something with blisters and bruises, and blood. So much blood.

You can’t let that happen to Teddy, you realize, shocked. Nine-year-old Teddy, who is all cheeky smiles and lisps and who reminds you so much of Mary you could cry.)

This is why you don’t black out. You just –

You just _smile_. You smile and wink. “Then you can call me Sue, Teddy,” you tell him. “I’m not _that_ old.”

Teddy smiles warmly, looking at you. “Well, Mrs. Sue, we just came here because we wanted to say that we really like your dress,” he says.

“You do?” you ask, appalled. 

“Yes,” Samuel nods, “It’s very pretty.”

Their words make you think of Emily’s eyes, but not in a bad way this time.

It makes you smile widely. “Thank you, Samuel and Teddy,” you tell them. _“Thank you.”_

//

You sleep the whole train ride back to Amherst. You dream of a boarding house. You follow a dark hallway all the way to a slightly ajar door at the end of it. You push it open and see Mary. She is crying. 

When you wake, you realize you are crying, too.

Even though you ruined your friendship forever, you still hope she finds it in her heart to forgive you.

And if she doesn’t, you hope she can at least forgive herself, because she is a good person, and because none of this is her fault, and because Sam doesn’t deserve a woman as generous and wonderful as Mary, never in a million years.

//

The day of Billy’s christening is a nice spring day. The warmth of the sun makes the throbbing headache you wake up with a bit more bearable.

You and Austin walk towards the church together. He doesn’t hold your hand. You pretend you don’t notice.

In church, Austin can’t take his eyes off Jane. You don’t blame him. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t still hurt.

“Where is Emily?” you ask.

Austin shrugs. “At home, I imagine. She doesn’t usually come to church.”

“You know, I still haven’t seen her since her poem got published. It’s like she’s hiding from me.”

“Yes, well, I’d leave her alone if I were you,” Austin comments. It sounds like a threat.

You don’t understand. “But… I have things I need to say to her.”

“I imagine she knows them already,” Austin answers. For the first time today, you and Austin look at each other. You can see it in his eyes: he knows, and Emily knows, too.

As soon as he sees Jane, he lights up. 

I can threaten you too, you think. Watch me. “Don’t let people forget. You’re still my husband,” you say, smiling a little too wide.

Austin doesn’t bite. “No one here is under any illusions about that,” he mumbles, making his way towards Jane.

The way he says it is enough for you.

This is all there is to you, all there ever is. You take the people you love and tear them apart.

You ruined Mary, you ruined Austin, you ruined your baby, you ruin everyone you care about.

(Two thoughts, equally as terrifying: What if you ruined Emily? What if you ruined yourself, too?)

//

You look at Austin and Jane, looking at each other. There’s a certain longing there, a certain _want_.

And you just want Emily.

You leave the church to go and find her.

//

Homestead is alarmingly quiet. Your footsteps on the stairs resonate through the entire parlor.

You bite your lip as you stand in front of Emily’s door. The last time you were in there was more than a year ago. That thought is too much for you to handle, so you take a deep breath and knock.

Emily mumbles something you don’t understand. You open the door.

Emily is sitting at her desk, staring out the window. “Emily. I came to see you,” you say, cautiously, not sure how much she knows.

Emily doesn’t look at you. “Get out,” she orders.

Your heart stops for half a second. “Emily.” You close the door. “We have to talk.”

“I don’t wanna talk to you. I don’t even wanna look at you. Come to think of it, I don’t ever wanna see you again.”

“Give me a chance to explain my side of things,” you try. You walk up to her, uncertain as to how far you are allowed to go.

“What is there to explain?” Emily sputters. “I can see everything perfectly clearly.”

“No. There are things that you can’t see.” A pause. “You have every right to be angry with me.”

“I’m not asking you for your permission,” Emily spits back. She looks at you; you have never seen her this livid. It makes your entire body tremble.

You don’t know where to start. “I know you cared about him,” you attempt. 

The look in Emily’s eyes silences you immediately.

“ _Cared_ about him? You _pushed_ me to care about him. You practically _forced_ me to,” Emily sneers.

This is it: You are at a loss for words, light in your head, your mouth dry and your eyes wet. 

“It’s like you wanted me to fall in love with him,” Emily continues. “But why? When you were the one that loved him the whole time.”

“I didn’t love him,” you answer immediately, because you don’t. You have to make her understand this. “I never did.”

“You’re a liar,” Emily retorts.

“I don’t give a _shit_ about that man,” you firmly say.

“Then why did you sleep with him? And why… why did you keep telling me to give him my poems?”

(This is it, in the end. You knew this had to happen. This is all there is. This is the trauma your childhood spat back at you.)

“Because I couldn’t handle the things your poems made me feel,” you gasp. “Your poems are too powerful. They’re like snakes, they slither into me and they coil around my heart and they squeeze me until I can’t breathe. They’re glittering and venomous, and they _bite_.”

(This is _it_. The trauma, the boarding house, _wanting_.

Wanting so badly that it ends up all wrong and twisted.)

“I got scared, Emily.” You can’t seem to look at her. “Of the way you grip me. Of the way you poison me.”

It’s then that you decide to look up. The look in her eyes is –

“When I married Austin and we became sisters, the only bond between us was your words. You started writing _so_ much, and I was the only one who ever saw any of it. I got overwhelmed. So I thought if I pushed you a little, then…” you trail off.

“If you pushed me away, I’d become someone else’s problem?” Emily taunts.

Your throat goes dry. You are frantically searching for the right words. You can’t find them, because Emily is right and you both know she is.

“Well, guess what? I’m not your problem anymore, Sue,” she tells you, matter-of-factly. “You can go back to your perfect parlor with your fancy dresses, and be as _exquisitely empty_ as you like, because I will never make you feel _anything_ again,” Emily says. “And you know what?”

“What?” you whisper, terrified of what's to come.

“Without me…" Emily begins, "without me I don’t think you know how to have feelings.”

“Okay.”

This is it: you break.

//

You stumble towards the door, spinning, out of breath, the room falling apart around you. “You’re right,” you manage weakly.

“Right about what?”

You turn around, look at her. A sour taste wells up in your throat.

You never allowed yourself to mourn losing Emily after your marriage and you didn’t give yourself the opportunity to heal from that wound. You ran straight into the arms of material love, and now it has all fallen apart. 

Everything has fallen apart, all of your love, all of the people you dragged down with you, every little thing. And you can live with that, you can be okay with that, with everything, except Emily.

Everything is broken and still, you feel lighter than you have in months. There is this terrifying, empire-sized inner feeling of love burning in your heart. It almost makes you faint.

I can’t ruin this, too, you think, not more than I already did. Emily doesn’t deserve that.

“The only time I feel things is when I’m with you,” you confess, your heart shattering.

Emily mumbles something inaudible, but you continue, you _have to_ continue, unable to stop, the truth suddenly spilling out of your mouth like the blood you're always choking on.

“I pushed you towards him because I wanted to escape what I was feeling,” you say. “And I slept with him ‘cause I didn’t want to feel it.”

You feel new tears welling up. “There is so much that I don’t want to feel, Emily.”

This is it: it all comes back to _want_ , always. You think you might throw up.

“And the biggest thing that I don’t want to feel is –”

“Is what?” Emily aggressively turns around. “Hm? Is _what_?” She runs up to you. “What is it, Sue? Just say it!”

“Is that I’m in love with you!” you exclaim. _I’m in love with you._ I’m so in love with you. Your throat is closing, and tears are blurring your vision.

“I don’t believe you,” Emily murmurs, looking at you with moist eyes.

“It’s true,” you cry, weakly. _I love you_.

“It’s not true. Nothing you say to me is true. You’re not even Sue anymore. You’re a new person, a fake person. I don’t even recognize you. Everything you say to me is a lie!”

_“Emily, I love you!”_

“Stop lying to me!” she cries, and your heart feels it before your body does, but then your body does, too: her fingers, your throat, her fingers _choking_ you. 

“I love you!” you yell. You look into her eyes and you say, “And I felt you in the library, because you're always with me. I can’t escape from you, because the only true thing I will ever feel is my love for you.”

Her hand is still at your throat – and then it isn’t.

You push up against her, lips colliding with almost an inhuman desire, a craving, and then she turns around and presses you painfully hard against the wall.

She kisses you hotly and drags her tongue across your entire neck. You try to steady yourself by grasping the bookshelf on the wall, your free hand weaving through Emily’s hair and there is a fire blazing through your entire body, through the very membrane of your cells, crawling its way up your legs, lighting you from within, a burning, smoldering heat between your thighs.

Yes, you think with a quiet whimper, _yes_.

Emily opens your corset in one quick hand-motion and starts kissing your neck, your chest, right on your heart, your stomach.

Her name keeps falling from your lips. You lose yourself completely, light spills in a flood, ripping you wide open, ripping you apart and making you whole again.

“Oh my God,” you mumble when she falls down to her knees and pulls up your skirt. You drape your right leg over her shoulder. “Emily… I just –” 

Whatever you were about to say is immediately lost as her tongue meets you much sooner than you had anticipated. 

“Emily,” you gasp, and your mind goes blank. You don’t care how loud you’re being, how wet you are, how – 

Emily touches you like you’ve never been touched before, and you gasp again. This is what being alive feels like: to eat the fire, swallow the flame, shattering. To be lit from within, to be the sun, that is all you _want_ –

All you want and –

_Want_ –

“Oh, _Emily_ ,” you sigh as you fall apart against her, and suddenly, there are flames, _everywhere_.

(This is how you forgive each other. This forgiveness is not gentle: it is rough and possessive and needy, all twisted tongues and high whines and teeth that bite.)

(Forgiveness, in the end, is still gentle. Forgiveness is always gentle.

After you finish, Emily scrambles up and grins triumphantly. Her chin is still wet when she kisses you.

“God, I missed you too,” you mumble jokingly, your voice quivering. 

Emily has to kiss you again to keep herself from laughing. “Let’s go downstairs,” she says. “There is no one home.”

And then Emily looks at you and laughs anyways, intertwining your fingers and leading you to the stairs, and you laugh too and kiss her again and again and again and you can’t believe how in love with her you are.)

//

(The real apologies come way later, fevered and tearful, and Emily accepts on one condition: “Don’t _ever_ hurt me like that again.”

You smile and kiss her. You don’t.)

//

You and Emily slowly make your way downstairs, giggling hotly into each other’s mouths and undressing each other in a way that makes your heart burn up from the inside.

You look up from kissing her neck when you see the dining table. “Em?” 

She hums absentmindedly in response.

“Why is there so much food on the table?”

Emily looks up, eyes bright. “Oh, right, I completely forgot. Maggie wanted to surprise me, because –” She trails off when you place a series of open mouth kisses on her throat.

“Because?” you smirk.

“Because I wasn’t having the best day,” Emily says. “It’s all better now, though,” she hastily says when she sees your facial expression.

You can’t help but grin. "Well, in that case, I think we should live it up.” 

“Yeah, we definitely should,” Emily agrees as she intertwines your fingers once again and leads you to the dining room with a wide smile.

//

You make a mess in the dining room.

The table is richly filled – grapes, caramelized apples, butter cake with lemon icing, tangerines, lemons and oranges, plums, vanilla tea, slices of honeydew melon and watermelon, cherry wine, radishes, a honeycomb and pieces of goat cheese.

You offer each other little (or sometimes a bit larger) bites of everything, you share kisses and stories and jokes, and you don’t remember the last time laughter came this easily.

Emily is sitting in a chair, peeling an orange, and there’s a look on her face that is both stunned and half in love.

You don’t think you’ve ever seen something more beautiful.

“Do you think we could live like this every day?” Emily asks, smiling warmly.

You laugh. “No, I don’t think I can eat _this_ much cake every day.”

Emily rolls her eyes, still smiling. “Okay, maybe not exactly like this, because same. But just – us, like this, _together?_ ”

“Yeah,” you answer, biting your lip. “I think we could.”

(Perhaps the world ends at the dining table, you think, wearing nothing but your chemise, laughing and feeding your best friend grapes and slices of orange, hands sticky with juice, kissing the nectar right of her lips.)

//

The bath is something else altogether.

You and Emily fill the tub in the kitchen with boiled water, dried up violets and bluebells petals and lavender soap and undress each other with soft, content smiles. Emily glides easily into in the steaming water, and you step in the tub after her. 

“It’s hot, be careful –” Emily mumbles as she offers her hand to steady you.

You guide yourself between her legs. “Lay back,” Emily whispers, her breath ghosting over the shell of your ear, and you do. You lie down, your back against her chest, and you close your eyes.

Emily brushes her nose against yours. She lazily lets her fingers ghost over your abdomen. After a little while, her fingers start drawing small circles on your thighs underwater. You tilt your head back and sigh.

I love you, you think as Emily touches you, finger-light, soft and languid caresses that make you shiver with desire. Your hand desperately grips the edge of the bathtub, knuckles white-red as Emily starts kissing your neck. _I love you. I love you. I love you._

And after all, what is done in love, is done well.

//

At the end of the afternoon, you stumble into the greenhouse together, clean and warm and naked and so, so in love.

"I love you," Emily mumbles.

“I love you too," you tell Emily in-between kisses, and then you slide your hand between her thighs and you show her just how true that statement is the remainder of the afternoon.

After, you happily lie next to each other on the grass, your hands are loosely draped over the fabric your wearing, a blissful blankness playing at the edges of your mind.

“I could die happy right now,” you breathe out.

“Not me,” Emily remarks, grinning as you look at her. “I feel sorry for the dead today.”

And in this exact moment, right here, right now, is where you fully realize how incredibly much you actually love her - the truest thing about you is your love for Emily. It is the core of your life, the only thing that matters.

You are so much more vibrant, so much lighter because of her.

Emily is the only person in the entire world who understands every fiber of you, the person who loves you and wants you and most importantly, the person who truly _sees_ you, every single part of you, even now.

No one should underestimate the privilege of being seen by someone, you think. 

“Emily?” you mumble.

“Yeah?”

“When I’m with you, that is the only time I feel alive.”

You slowly turn your body to look at her, to _see_ her, and she looks right back at you.

“That’s all I need,” she exclaims, eyes full of love, “that’s all I’ve ever needed. To make you feel that way.”

It’s difficult to describe just how it feels to lie in the greenhouse next to Emily and discover that the air leaving your lungs, the breaths you take belong to you again. You can clear your throat and not feel the heavy, intoxicating copper taste of blood anymore, sweep into a dustpan the glittering shards of all the things you denied yourself, all the nights drenched heavy in sweat and fear, all the nightmares.

“I write for you, _my Sue_ ,” Emily tells you, and you think: yes, I’m yours, Em. “I write for you. For you alone.”

You nod softly.

“That’s enough.”

You say: “I will never let go of you again.”

And you don't.

//

(Your grief is not gone, your body still full of flies – but you kiss her hands again. You’re going to be good to her now, better.

You’re going to wear your newfound love for Emily around your shoulders like your favorite golden dress from now on.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HOLY FUCK THAT FINALE EPISODE FUCKING KILLED ME WHAT THE FUCK

**Author's Note:**

> anyways so i've watched those 3 new dickinson episodes an unhealthy amount of times the last few days and i just wanted to give a little bit of an explanation for sue's behavior, cause homegirl really is testing me right now, pushing emily away like that :)))
> 
> let me know what you think, i would love to make a second chapter when the new episodes from season 2 come out!
> 
> also can anyone tell me what age emily and sue are actually supposed to be lol?? because they could be anywhere between 15 and 19 in season 1 and 18 and 24 in season 2 to me lol
> 
> btw i used the word "want" 52 times in this chapter lmao


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